Girl Spearheads Letter-Writing Campaign for Soldiers

About a year ago, 11-year-old Savannah Maddison of Florida wanted to cheer up her friend, Wilson, whose father had been deployed to Afghanistan. She wrote Wilson a song, but that didn’t feel like enough.

The letters started pouring in. Savannah eventually met and exceeded her goal, and added a naval unit and an army battalion to reach more than 1,000 service men and women. She’s still gathering letters today; you can even e-mail a letter to the troops through her website.

Sweet footnote: Wilson’s dad made it home to his family, just in time for Christmas.